


Operating System Failure

by mooniescribbles



Series: A.I. [1]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: This is really more about the Squip than Jeremy or Michael, just a forewarning, mention of stagedorks but it's like, my headcanon/verse description of how this fucker is still alive, short chapters though until they start getting longer I guess, they broke up already so, this is gonna be a chapter fic so I'll get into stuff about jeremy and christine later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 00:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13693329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooniescribbles/pseuds/mooniescribbles
Summary: The Squip puts himself back together after the play incident and observes Jeremy's life for a while while he attempts to fix his operating systems.





	Operating System Failure

■ ▙ ▚  ▞ ▟ ■

 

****

_ Jeremy Heere. Welcome to your Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor. Your S.Q.U.I.P. _

If only the Squip had known what he was getting into. Of course, he could predict a wide assortment of futures – possible scenarios that would come from decisions he (and Jeremy) made. Somehow the possibility of Jeremy drinking alcohol had been low enough for him to not worry about. To not  _ warn him _ of the side-effects of such things – the disruption to code and programming errors. He had temporarily gone idle to check the status of running systems while Jeremy was alone with Chloe (a decision that, looking back, was a bad one he could even admit; one must account for calculation error), and within moments his systems started failing. Optic Nerve Blocking offline, a virus of sorts swimming through his lines of code.  

If the Squip was possible of emotion, he would have felt violated in the worst way.  

By the time he got things back online, he hadn't fully wiped the bug in his system. Operation just enough to sync to Rich's Squip and catch up on what was happening.  

He did not like what he found.  

_ We have to get you out of here. _

On Jeremy's drive home, something changed. The Squip focused on fixing flare ups and repairing firewalls but it was as though they were made of paper. Something infected him. Something  _ broke  _ him. Cue Squipping the whole school and taking over Jeremy's body to fight his best friend. It wasn't until the shrieks of pain from the other Squips shorted out his system that he was able to regain proper functionality.  

He awoke to darkness. Normally he could 'see' everything Jeremy could, and more. Holographic screens and calculations firing a million times a second. But there was nothing. Like his hard drive had been wiped and he had to start from scratch. Jeremy was lucky (or, perhaps, unlucky) that his Squip had a far higher level of sentience than the others. He was able to pick himself up and restart, finding the reboot switch after several days of searching through dead, dark code. Running idly in the back of Jeremy’s mind as he went about his life. As he dated Christine. As he broke up with her. Until a few days before Senior year... 

Over the summer the Squip had taken note of, adapted to, and almost become fond of several of Jeremy’s actions. Being more sentient allowed him one shining advantage over any other Squip – He could  _ grow. _ He could adapt and change and  _ learn. _ Jeremy was walking home from Michael’s, still slightly stoned, when the Squip spoke up for the first time. 

_ You missed your turn. _

Jeremy jumped nearly a foot in the air. His eyes went wide, and he looked around wildly for the body that the voice belonged to. The Squip materialized in front of him, looking more like a monochromatic version of Jeremy himself edited in the subtlest way towards idealistic beauty standards. His ears were pointed just slightly, his irises glowing an almost eerie blue. His hair was stark black, skin pale grey. “Wh-Where did you come from?!” 

“I’m inside your brain, Jeremy. As I have always been.” The Squip replied coolly, sliding his hands into his pockets. He didn’t seem as full of contempt as he used to be. Not as sneer. Not as... evil. “You missed your turn.”

“I-- What?” Jeremy looked over his shoulder, though he was clearly hesitant about taking his eyes off the Squip. The supercomputer was right (because of course he was), Jeremy’s street was a block back. How had he managed that? He’d walked home from Michael’s a thousand times. “Oh.” He turned back around, eyes half-narrowed at the shimmering visage before him. “....Thanks...?” 

The Squip began walking, leading the way back. “You’re on edge. It is... understandable.” He started, moving his hands from his pockets to clasp them behind his back. A fidget that was unusual for the computer-generated image. If Jeremy looked closely, he could see the grip tighten around his hand. While he was truly just a holographic image generated in Jeremy’s imagination (and any touch he may have felt was simply simulated, fired nerves), the Squip was as real as he could get to himself. Which was an odd thing to think about, considering these actions were very different before... 

Before the reboot. 

He shook the thought off. 

“Well yeah, you sorta took over the whole school and made my best friend think I was terrible and Christine didn’t even like me and–”

“That is the past, Jeremy.” 

“Still doesn’t mean I can trust you.” 

Jeremy was met with silence. He arched an eyebrow in response to the quiet moments that ticked by. He would have thought silence wasn’t in the Squip’s programming, given before he rarely knew how to shut up. They kept walking. The Squip said nothing else the whole way to Jeremy’s, though he didn’t leave either. He just walked, tight fist rubbing his adjacent wrist. They ascended the stairs to Jeremy’s front door, and he motioned to it with his raw-wristed hand. The teen’s hand landed on the door knob and he glanced over at the Squip before the figure shimmered away. 

Jeremy gave a shake of his head as he entered the house. His dad was still out, so it was dark and quiet. “I really gotta stop smoking so much at Michael’s...” He muttered, ascending his stairs as he cracked his neck on one side, and then the other. 


End file.
